1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cellophane agar medium which is preferably usable in various fields such as food manufacture, sake brewing, soy manufacture, medicine manufacture, and pollution and hygiene research, and to a method for observing a microbe.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fungous cell such as mold and yeast can not be fixed well, which is different from zooblast, so that micro structural research and development lag behind conspicuously. In this point of view, it is disclosed in “Microscope, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1986” that a cellophane is disposed so as to be opposite to a agar medium to which a microbe such as fungous cell is inoculated and the resultant cellophane agar medium with the grown hypha is immersed in a cooling medium to freeze and fix the microbe with the cellophane. This fixing method is called as a rapid freezing substitution method.
With the conventional method, however, it is required to sandwich the resultant cellophane agar medium with the microbe with two glass plates. Therefore, it is difficult to make such a sample as to be able to be utilized in scanning electron microscope observation and transmission electron microscope observation. Also, the true configuration of growth and proliferation and the inherent configuration of the microbe can not be observed in situ.
In order to observe the true configuration of growth and proliferation and the inherent configuration of a microbe, it is disclosed in “Monthly cells, Vol. 29, 1997” that the microbe is directly cultivated on a cellophane agar medium. With the conventional method, since a thin sample can be made easily from the resultant cellophane agar medium, such a sample as to be able to be utilized in scanning electron microscope observation and transmission electron microscope observation can be made easily. With the conventional method, however, since the microbe can not be fixed effectively and efficiently onto the cellophane agar medium, it can not be observed practically with the scanning electron microscope or the transmission electron microscope.